Op-ed by Matt Dietrich

As government train wrecks go, the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative makes me think of that old film clip of two locomotives colliding head-on.

As detailed by Illinois Auditor General William Holland, the 2010 Chicago anti-violence program was a spectacular explosion that sent $55 million in taxpayer dollars flying every which way until much of it disappeared into thin air. The August 2010 program has been described as a "slush fund"for Gov. Pat Quinn - a means of dispensing lots of dollars to (a) look like he was taking action against the gun violence that plagued some Chicago neighborhoods in summer 2010 and (b) shore up votes for a tough reelection campaign.

Now Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez has begun a criminal investigation of the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative.

Reports the Chicago Sun-Times:

A criminal grand jury has launched a probe into Gov. Pat Quinn's troubled anti-violence program - once likened to "a political slush fund" - delivering a major blow to the Democrat as he seeks re-election this fall.

On Tuesday, the Quinn administration turned over 1,000 documents pertaining to the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative to the Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez following a subpoena from her office.

The request was issued to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity on March 19 and sought records tied to the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative - including those for the Chicago Area Project, a program tied to the husband of Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown.

Holland's report established firmly that this program fit the dictionary definition of "boondoggle."

But the real problem here is that the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative is merely a symptom of a much greater problem in Illinois government.

We've seen all too often in recent history the results of the state's lax standards for ensuring that the grant money it hands out actually goes toward the purpose it's supposed to serve.

Four other individuals are scheduled for trial in a related case in U.S. District Court in June.

This follows the indictments in 2011 of Margaret Davis and Tonja Cook, who between 2005 and 2009 obtained 15 state grants, ostensibly to promote nursing careers through the Chicago chapter of the Black Nurses Association. Instead, they spent $500,000 on personal expenses. They pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money laundering charges.

Former Country Club Hills police chief Regina Evans and her husband Ronald Evans were indicted in 2012 for stealing a 2009 Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity grant worth $1.25 million.

The money was for two nonprofits the couple operated and was purportedly going to toward training bricklayers and electricians and providing GED preparation. The Evanses pleaded guilty to numerous felony counts and are awaiting sentencing. Prosecutors are seeking 10 years for Regina Evans at her May 1 sentencing in federal court in Springfield.

And these are the ones who got caught.

Why can't Illinois get a handle on this?

In 2009, as the Blagojevich scandal was taking the nation by storm, the newly appointed Gov. Quinn formed the 15-member Illinois Reform Commission to help the state avoid the corruption trouble that came to define Blagojevich and his predecessor, George Ryan.

Go look at the report here, and scroll down to page 23, where the commission recommends extensive reform of the state's procurement process. Isn't it time to dig these ideas back up and apply them to the grant process?

I'd be remiss if I didn't throw a reality check in here. The actions described above are outrageous, as is the carelessness and lack of oversight that allowed them to happen. It only reinforces the notion that state government is at best inept and at worst corrupt.

But the amounts abused are in the millions. In the grand scheme of Illinois' broken budget, they total a tiny fraction of the current backlog of unpaid bills - " $5.1 billion. It would take about 93 Neighborhood Recovery Initiatives (if you consider the entire program a waste) to fill that hole.

In other words, don't look to ending these crazy boondoggles as the solution to the state's deep budget trouble.

We'll be keeping an eye on the Cook County State's Attorney's Office and the U.S. Attorneys in both Chicago and Springfield. The previous prosecutions of state grant abusers could pale in comparison to the large-scale fraud hinted at in Holland's report on the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative.

It really reinforces the fact that democrats are blatant extortionist. They have no respect for the people that they are suppose to serve and they will milk the tax payer every chance they get. Voting D is like poking holes in your own boat.

Only by those who will only vote for the person with a (d) after their name. For those with an open mind and who actually hope this state can be saved, Quinn is the poster child of what is wrong with this state.

Urban blacks believe the solution to their problem is government funding to alleviate the poverty these individuals are born into. Maybe. But until they recognize and acknowledge the serious flaws in their culture-glorification of violence, emphasizing appearance over substance, and lowering standards to the lowest common denominator-they will never rise above it.

Once again, politicians and their friends taking money aimed at helping the less fortunate being stolen and taken elsewhere. It happens with foreign aid and it happens in the US.

The money should be used to centrally procure stuff, instead of giving people money to then use or procure stuff. One you start handing out checks, who knows where that money goes to. Certainly not the community it was meant to help. The community just continues to suffer in ignorance of what the check writers have done with all that money.

Illinois and Cook County is just rotting from the inside out with corruption. Crime in Chicago during prohibition pales in comparison to what it is now, one moth takes more lives than one year under Capone & Co. A horrible mess and everyone is paying off or being paid off by the democrat machine.